Tokyo is the capital city of Japan, a metropolis on the island of Honshu.
Tokyo developed from a fishing village called Edo. The Tokugawa shogunate made Edo its seat of government in 1603, and the settlement grew into one of the world’s largest cities. In 1868, during the Meiji Restoration, the emperor moved from Kyoto to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo, meaning “Eastern Capital.”
Tokyo is both a city and the name commonly used for the wider Tokyo metropolitan area. Administratively, the core is the Tokyo Metropolis, which includes 23 special wards, cities, towns, and villages. This distinction explains why population figures for “Tokyo” vary depending on the boundary being measured.
The city was heavily damaged by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and by bombing during the Second World War. It later became a major global center for finance, manufacturing, technology, culture, and transportation. Tokyo hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964 and again in 2021.